For those who came to argue that paranormal phenomena and psychics are real...
If it's not something tangible that can be observed by others, trying to convince people that it's real is indistinguishable from trying to convince people that a total fantasy is real from the perspective of the person you're trying to convince. Think about the psychology of that from the perspective of the person you're trying to convince. If you can succeed in convincing them without scientific validation, then they can be convinced of total nonsense as well! That's a recipe for eventually drinking somebody's kool-aid. That's no bueno.
I've given you the information to make your own judgment with. That's how much I respect you.
But since you asked, I'll give my opinions:
(1) I doubt that he faked the timestamps, but I don't rule it out.
(2) I think there is a very reasonable chance that he was fed information, but I keep an open mind to other possibilities (even aside from super duper psychic powers).
(3) I was not thinking about "later" when I wrote this.
Dec 20, 2022·edited Dec 20, 2022Liked by Mathew Crawford
As far as I can tell, the only person that reliably went on record about seeing those clots is Hirschman. Everybody else either quotes him, or says that they heard it from other people. (He also says that other embalmers told him privately about seeing those clots, but provides no names.) That makes me a bit uneasy about that evidence.
Two weeks ago I talked to Steve Kirsch as I resigned from his vaccine steering committee, and he said that the hundred coroners reportedly in a room with (conveniently) no recording, was "not in dispute". That felt extremely obtuse---like something that could be said of any hearsay evidence. Heck, the best way to pull that off would be to simply make up the entire group gathering. That way there could be nobody to check, and there is already almost nobody who could verify whether or not the gathering took place. Acting like there aren't deductive leaps for such evidence is an on face departure from due diligence.
Thrombosis causes spaghetti looking clots. I think that they should start testing for thrombosis as it often precedes heart failure. Usually thrombosus goes undetected for many years but these are forming very quickly. Nano particles can self replicate. It only seeks to replicate itself. Pretty sure that it will correct itself as it kills people, like a virus mutates to live inside a living host. But, maybe nano particles could evolve to live inside other things besides just humans. They could leap into bananas or anything, lol.
I don't think they use nano-particles - too expensive. Death Ray is an old, time-tested technology that has been perfected and made very cost-effective over the years. Its first use over 100 years ago has been well-documented in this well-researched book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Garin_Death_Ray
When the amount is carefully calibrated it can cause thrombosis, myocarditis, etc. But it's very hard to aim automatically. What people think are self-assembling nano-particles are actually relatively cheap homing devices that assist in Death Ray targeting.
Nanoparticles are very free indeed. They have consciousness too. AI or manmade lifeforms can and will develop free-will. Life seeks to replicate. It is possible to program them but once they self replicate that shows they are going rogue. Pretty soon the unvaxxed will show same side effects as vaxxed, but to a different degree. If I were to give any advice on how to protect yourself from harm by nano foglets, figure out how to use your mind to communicate with them. Like talking to plants.
2) was what I reflexively thought was being implied by the presentation in the first place. I spent some time staring at a magnification of the drawing so I could puzzle out his handwriting. Do the seemingly random fragments of quotes check out?
I find it a wonderful coincidence that this article dropped just as I was finishing the last pages of "Raven," which I had bought at your endorsement several months ago but only just started this weekend.
oh dear. i guess i get to wear my red dress today.
Haha so yes i can be a remote viewer and I know others...however all of my work is done in other dimensions and is part of my healing work. the dimensions are specific, it is the lower and upper worlds.
The work is not tangible and is not linear. it dovetails nicely in with the work that i do with plant medicine, a big part of which is communicating with the plants to understand their medicine, this communication is not linear either (and i write about it on my substack :) So i get to practice a lot.
So yes, as far as proof goes, there is none. its not a tangible place or does it produce tangible results. basically if its meaningful to you then its meaningful. personally I have travelled to other realms for people around health issues in body mind and spirit and they have had the desired result. they have felt better, things have improved. We believe that it was because of what we did. but there is no proof. and as soon as there is, you're not doing that work. (like so quantum mannnn) so for sure, it absolutely could all be made up. again if it's not meaningful its not.
(you can see how it's going to be hard to profit from any of this unless you're an absolute showman and a lier. I do personally know one medicine man who got told by a plant who was going to win the super bowl that year and one who got told that trump would be president and I suppose they could of bet on it...and I think the super bowl guy was part of a pool so yeah but really. this stuff is not reliable)
and for sure you could spend a lot of words showing how this is all subconscious pattern blah blah, absolutely. However for those of us who work in this line of work our framework and our lineage is that it's part of our healing work.
Now of course, a practice that can't be proved is ripe for gaming. kind of like self declarative gender. like call in the crows its feeding time! so yeah. so many arseholes and charlatans preying on peoples fear. very much like big pharma and bad supplements. the last big wave of for profit arseholes we had was the ayahuasca crew and its not good coz that stuff can fuck people up....
i mean its healing work, that culturally was left in the hands of the healers and so when it gets gamed it is harmful. I'm sure the DoD were also pretty fucked up and one of the first red flags for me is someone needing a lot of money to demonstrate or heal with their "powers". Or to be respected as having healing powers.
Healing work isn't a for profit thing. it is the art of bringing back into balance. not endless energy or health or growth...it doesn't fit into the capitalist framework and really doesn't dovetail into a big power play. And it's not a super power. it's a calling. i mean anyone can build a house, just some people are more gifted. Honestly the best response to magic is so what? we walk with magic everyday. just by remaining stuck to the ground.
Also there needs to be a cultural agreement around folks who work in these realms. you cant really just say this is what I'm good at and expect to be trusted. it needs to be also recognized by your community. (and no i don't mean followers - another red flag), but your community. just like a man cant just say i'm a women and expect to be welcomed in the little girls toilets. the community has to agree that this is okay within the communal context. (and thankfully, no its not okay. and no I don't know any gender fluid person who wants to do that unless they have some really fucked up and dubious issues and shouldn't be trusted) So yes. there are failures. as in people be people. which is why we have community. And if they have a youtube channel, they are probably gaming the system. they might have the skills but to what end are they using them?
So i know some good healers, and remote travelers who are recognized within there communities and make a decent living off their skills and talents. but no one gets rich. This shit isn't tangible or logical. its only felt and anecdotal. and again its only meaningful if its meaningful. And none of them ever want to work for the DoD and most of them are very much on the down low. Have some of them been played? (maybe) but again. you cant prove whats not there lol.
And i'm sorry that you were part of the industrial war complex. A bigger bunch of nice guys being absolutely evil I cant imagine.
You say that Remote Viewing is not tangible, but that's the opposite of what the SRI said when they began their research. Their goal was tangible results, and they put Remote Viewing at the very top of the list, with very tangible claims (that could not be reproduced).
Uri Geller locating oil fields is beyond tangible.
But there may be two versions of the idea, then, getting blurred by different sets of claims. If that is the case, I suggest not blurring your version with the name they chose for their version.
And if it's not tangible, then it's not of significance.
But to distinguish between the blurred boundaries...the claim made by the Remote Viewer in this article is quite tangible. Clearly. That's why it's dramatic.
And conveniently, it's about the rubbery clots---not something where the audience can experience the science, or can be evaluated by data or logic in isolation. Hmmmm.
I believe there are quite a few versions of the idea, and for sure I responded to your sub to present mine, and also represent healers, by talking about a version that is about healing rather than using journeying skills for? attention? profit? power?...
I find claims made in the you tube video rubbish and dramatic and a waste of time. But I don't dismiss the art, or the work thats done in other realms. being a practitioner and all.....and i like to remind people of the mystery of life. So yeah apologies if i spring-boarded off this conversation somewhat.
Why is it that one of the tests for success in being a prophet, a viewer, a psychic, a whatnot is whether or not they made a lot of money? When you look around the world as it is now, does it appear that having or securing a lot of money is consistent with holiness, consideration, thoughtfulness, higher morality, truthfulness? Or does it appear differently?
If we learn that there is a significant "spiritual" component to one's ability to move beyond the body or disengage consciousness from a confined locality, and we also learn that money or desiring money is harmful to one's spiritual growth and consistency and flourishing, would we still make that test a standard?
I get the skepticism towards outlandish or slapdash claims. It is also accurate historically to notice there are various systems of remote viewing, which is a different activity from "out of body" experiences or practices. Uri Gellar, for example, emphasized coordinate remote viewing —the practice that became a part of GRILL FLAME, under an operating theory regarding the role consciousness plays in undermining what the supraconscious mind accesses when viewing. Other people practice different techniques; for example, Ed Dames, if I'm recalling correctly here, uses a more intuitive/interpretive model, with different outcomes.
For me, I'm more familiar with the Gateway techniques and practices advanced by the Monroe Institute, which don't focus so much on remote viewing as developing one's consciousness to be less inhibited, less constrained, and so more free to go beyond the physical body. Do you recall the story told about Jesus where the disciples around him were concerned about paying taxes? The story goes that Jesus instructs them to go fishing, and soon enough catch a fish with the exact amount needed to pay the tax. When you combine this with the "Render unto . . ." story, I take it the point is that focusing on material wealth and gain confines you to material concerns. When you give yourself over to a "higher power" that's orchestrating "higher events" out from the seemingly random and seemingly conspiratorial and seemingly mundane occurrences happening all around you, you find you are given a life that balances out. The more I have learned about the spiritual world, the less I have wanted a life of material wealth. Of course, I'm a poor and broke person, so maybe this is just delusion to assuage a regretful ego, when if I had applied myself and gotten my papers in order, I'd be making nice cheddar stacks and live as a village godfather like my grandfather had. Or, on the other hand, I'm working through the karma such a family history built up and I'm learning to treasure more wisely.
Either way, I agree there are many forms of psychological warfare occurring, and in this age of Endless Total War, what better weapon is there than to inculcate self-doubt in people in order to deny them the most effective and powerful force-multiplier they have: their spiritual self? You cannot use the car parked in your driveway if you don't even believe in cars; you cannot leave an unlocked room if you are thoroughly convinced to never even try the knob —why look silly? Won't you be embarrassed when it doesn't work? Only fools and clowns believe in The Outside World! You don't want to be a clown, do you? You don't want to get scammed, right?
I'm not saying any of this to say that Riordan is right-on or legitimate.
"Why is it that one of the tests for success in being a prophet, a viewer, a psychic, a whatnot is whether or not they made a lot of money?"
Read my just-written pinned comment.
Either something cannot be tested, in which case...if you can convince an observer, then they can also be convinced of nonsense. Such a person will eventually drink somebody's kool-aid. So, encouraging people to believe without tangible validation is entirely irresponsible---except insofar as it comes with a childhood lesson on the limitations of trust.
Or, this is something tangible, so why not use it to predict where investment capital is best deployed (where it will help more people realize the gains of technology by definition)?
"Can also" is not the same thing as "will be." You're making a modal argument to assert an ethical claim that's totalizing: "entirely" irresponsible. So, on the basis of what might happen, you're free to assert what is universally the case for all people, all the time, everywhere? How does that actually work?
What is a tangible test for Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems? If someone finds it convincing that no logical system inclusive of arithmetic is capable of representing all truths concerning itself within itself but cannot build a machine to test this with graspable objects, does it actually follow such a person will have nonsensical views? But if someone can build such a machine, does it actually follow such a person will never have nonsensical views?
I did offer a "why not" reason not to do something. I also offered (contextually) a broader framework to understand that why-not reason. Consider my why-not reason in the same logical form but different context: "If your powers of persuasion are so effective, why not use them to seduce any person and have all the sex you want? Why not use them where social capital is best deployed and realize the gains of evolutionary selection, having as many children as possible and securing your genetic legacy?"
It's not value-neutral to assume a "best deployment" of "investment capital;" likewise the case for "helping" people "realize the gains of technology." Notice all of the presuppositions lurking behind these terms, presuppositions others not only do not share, but might also see as seductively harmful given they are also aligned with others' interests and values, people who don't have a problem with, for example, convincing a large number of people to self-inject themselves with poison or behave in self-destructive ways conducive to becoming further dependent on state or technocratic rule. There are many reasons why you shouldn't immediately use the powers you have available to you to make yourself richer. You've read Lord of the Rings, right? The Ring is very much the Ring of Gyges in Plato's Republic, with the same ethical question attached to its use: if you *could* have the capacity to do whatever you wanted with no one to see you, no one to judge you, why not use that ability to do all the things you ever *really* wanted to do?
The research Targ and Puthoff performed and Adey's critical response to it, when the CIA leaked it in a controlled way, had enough people convinced that remote viewing was untrustworthy and ineffective —and thus closed off many minds to the other findings they did demonstrate: there is ample evidence for human involvement in something much larger than traditional "five sensory inputs" models, something akin to an active participation in fields that permitted non-local interaction. It was in the CIA's interest to maintain the narrative that psi is nonsense, kool-aid, fringe, because it not only worked to embarrass the DIA, but also discouraged people from further examining what was actually happening.
So, consider a different side of your own asserted maxim: encouraging people to disbelieve without further exploration is entirely irresponsible —as you have already made posts on this theme before, where controlled opposition, well-poisoning, and straw man takedowns are enough to convince people that there's nothing to see here, no need to look any further, nothing worthwhile to find. Move along, it's all tiresome and boring, anyway.
At any rate, it's not unhealthy to approach the world with an open mind and a curious spirit, holding onto and letting go of various frameworks, and occasionally finding one's self believing in "nonsense." From a different perspective, you yourself believe in nonsense that you find personally convincing, satisfying, and sense-making, a viewpoint you capture in the metaphor of a rounding of the earth. But from that other perspective, what you do here is convince people to deviate from the majority, from the sensible, from the sound, because you are encouraging them to believe in misinformation, disinformation, and fraud —from which you profit by soliciting subscriptions and securing funding for other projects you promote. It's an open mind that looks past that other perspective and recognizes truth is not always conveniently sensible.
What does Mathew believe at this point? Is everything fake? Just a normal coronavirus and an inert vaccine that’s only dangerous when injected into a blood vessel?
I'm writing a book on history of Tarot cards which by chance takes in a lot of information about divination and the occult. It's amazing that there have been divinatory meanings attached to the cards since the late 18th century and yet no respectable scholar has waded into the occult swampy waters to the source. So, I have thought about such things as psychic powers. I think these powers exist but they cannot be reliably measured. Ironically, the Tarot cards came out of the Renaissance along with the project to measure every inch of the world, and yet the humanists of the 15th century knew that some things cannot be measured. Why is that? Is it because they don't exist--that if something can't be measured it doesn't exist? Or maybe measuring these intangibles requires a level of squishy pythagorean mathematics that is non-linear and unacceptable to the academy. Most definitely, though, there is a lot of trickery there but also genuine mystery.
Hi Matthew, had to pause all payments. Money just doesn't interest me, so I don't have much. I bought a book on crypto currency and I can't understand it, feels like reading blurry words that make me sleepy. I have dissociative disorder or ADHD.
I really would like to talk about remote viewing more and hear what you learned as a child, your abilities and so forth. In a past life I was a nazi, worked as a remote viewer then used as a breeder in experiments. They killed or experimented on the ones who didn't show potential to be chosen ones. There are beserkers, they're basically channels, and they know the mutation for it. Hitler wanted blonde blue eyed mutations because he thought good aliens or angels manifested as blue eyed and blond. It was because of his stepmom/aunt that he believed this. He was half Jewish btw. Thought he could save the world through eugenics. I remember things about him and nazi occultism through dreams mostly.
Anyways, I escaped with my son during childbirth. He had black hair. I was helping to free some of the children like a double spy. The psychic spies could communicate through twin telepathy, but not through technology. You have to be really close to a person to have twin telepathy. This was back in the 1940s so I'm sure they've come far through technological enhancements of telepathy. I've met some psychics who could imagine things then make them happen. Definitely a spiritual component to it. Not everyone has these capabilities. The ones who do have potential often don't develop it.
As for the flamboyent fashion of psychics, I think that we feel like mascots in a way. We don't fit in but merge consciousness with others, so we are like antennas but trying hard to maintain a unique identity. The ego also gets in the way of processing truth, so by separating ourselves from an ego that reacts, it's better to just be treated like a mascot than be taken seriously. Detachment = sanity. As soon as you start caring what they think or what could happen you lose all sense of going with the flow and fall into dangerous territories of self annihilation or worse, they become afraid of you. Like killing the messenger, people hate seers who see things they want to hide.
After a childhood of being around people studying paranormal phenomena, I saw nothing particularly exciting that was real, a lot of impossible to evaluate claims, people who changed their stories about unbelievable events, a lot of people committed to lies as a lifelong endeavor, a lot of violent abuse, escapism into drugs and other addictions, heartbreaking trauma, and what appears to be in retrospect to be a network of control surrounding it all.
Did you watch the James Randi biopic in which he admitted his life was a fraud; that he was secretly gay for decades, but let his lover die alone in order to maintain his secrecy?
Not a big fan of remote viewing, but having taken part in Dean Radin's Double Slit research at the Institute of Noetic Sciences, and surprised him by both blocking photons and making them conform into a tighter pattern, using different techniques, all within a Faraday Cage etc etc.
Be sure if you see the article in Frontiers claiming the data is misinterpreted, that you dig for Radin's response that his critic is not competent in statistical analysis, a problem, dear Mathew, you know ALL TOO WELL! :-)
Be careful with respect to having the wool pulled over your eyes when participating in such experiments.
I haven't watched that Randi biopic, but I don't depend on his story in any way. There are those who even think that he played a secret role in bringing more attention to fake psychics by standing in to play a role. It's plausible.
Years ago I ran a blog on Livejournal in which I would debunk some research---often psychology, and once in a while paranormal. A Cornell researcher named Daryl Bem published some experiments showing statistically significant likelihood of paranormal activity among subjects. Yawn. You can probably still find this somewhere---I and others ripped it apart, and fewer experiments like that have even been claimed since. That was a little difficult because I'd known Daryl's son, Jeremy---we both trained for the U.S. math olympiad team together for two years in high school. But that baffled me since I know quite well that his son...certainly would have recognized the statistical absurdities in the methodologies.
At some point, I deleted my blog after being threatened (really, me and my gf/wife...and that's what bothered me---our address was identified, which was creepy). This was before I understood how many thousands of threats are made per one carried out. I tried to undelete it a few hours later and somebody squatted on the name and is still there to this day (thehat).
For those who came to argue that paranormal phenomena and psychics are real...
If it's not something tangible that can be observed by others, trying to convince people that it's real is indistinguishable from trying to convince people that a total fantasy is real from the perspective of the person you're trying to convince. Think about the psychology of that from the perspective of the person you're trying to convince. If you can succeed in convincing them without scientific validation, then they can be convinced of total nonsense as well! That's a recipe for eventually drinking somebody's kool-aid. That's no bueno.
Mathew, you start with the fibrous clots prediction teaser, but never circle back to it. Can you please spell it out? I see at least 3 possibilities:
1) Riordan faked it (timestamps-shmisetams)
2) You suspect Riordan was fed the info by those who knew what was coming
3) None of the above. You are just using it as a curious entry point into what you really want to say later
Why would I spell out what I can't determine?
I've given you the information to make your own judgment with. That's how much I respect you.
But since you asked, I'll give my opinions:
(1) I doubt that he faked the timestamps, but I don't rule it out.
(2) I think there is a very reasonable chance that he was fed information, but I keep an open mind to other possibilities (even aside from super duper psychic powers).
(3) I was not thinking about "later" when I wrote this.
As far as I can tell, the only person that reliably went on record about seeing those clots is Hirschman. Everybody else either quotes him, or says that they heard it from other people. (He also says that other embalmers told him privately about seeing those clots, but provides no names.) That makes me a bit uneasy about that evidence.
Two weeks ago I talked to Steve Kirsch as I resigned from his vaccine steering committee, and he said that the hundred coroners reportedly in a room with (conveniently) no recording, was "not in dispute". That felt extremely obtuse---like something that could be said of any hearsay evidence. Heck, the best way to pull that off would be to simply make up the entire group gathering. That way there could be nobody to check, and there is already almost nobody who could verify whether or not the gathering took place. Acting like there aren't deductive leaps for such evidence is an on face departure from due diligence.
Thrombosis causes spaghetti looking clots. I think that they should start testing for thrombosis as it often precedes heart failure. Usually thrombosus goes undetected for many years but these are forming very quickly. Nano particles can self replicate. It only seeks to replicate itself. Pretty sure that it will correct itself as it kills people, like a virus mutates to live inside a living host. But, maybe nano particles could evolve to live inside other things besides just humans. They could leap into bananas or anything, lol.
I don't think they use nano-particles - too expensive. Death Ray is an old, time-tested technology that has been perfected and made very cost-effective over the years. Its first use over 100 years ago has been well-documented in this well-researched book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Garin_Death_Ray
When the amount is carefully calibrated it can cause thrombosis, myocarditis, etc. But it's very hard to aim automatically. What people think are self-assembling nano-particles are actually relatively cheap homing devices that assist in Death Ray targeting.
Nanoparticles are very free indeed. They have consciousness too. AI or manmade lifeforms can and will develop free-will. Life seeks to replicate. It is possible to program them but once they self replicate that shows they are going rogue. Pretty soon the unvaxxed will show same side effects as vaxxed, but to a different degree. If I were to give any advice on how to protect yourself from harm by nano foglets, figure out how to use your mind to communicate with them. Like talking to plants.
>They have consciousness too
Do you know what their IQ level is? Above a certain threshold PETA will get involved and then all bets are off...
2) was what I reflexively thought was being implied by the presentation in the first place. I spent some time staring at a magnification of the drawing so I could puzzle out his handwriting. Do the seemingly random fragments of quotes check out?
There is a rule of thumb that I use: "if there are more than 2 coincidences, they are not coincidences." Some of the implications of which are:
- Don't pay much attention to one coincidence, no matter how outlandish
- If there are 2 coincidences look for the third one
[Of course often it depends on what you call a coincidence]
So far I see only one coincidence (I did not look into it, though, I even did not click through the links.)
To be very clear, I merely find this an interesting thing I've been presented- I see no meaning in it.
I find it a wonderful coincidence that this article dropped just as I was finishing the last pages of "Raven," which I had bought at your endorsement several months ago but only just started this weekend.
oh dear. i guess i get to wear my red dress today.
Haha so yes i can be a remote viewer and I know others...however all of my work is done in other dimensions and is part of my healing work. the dimensions are specific, it is the lower and upper worlds.
The work is not tangible and is not linear. it dovetails nicely in with the work that i do with plant medicine, a big part of which is communicating with the plants to understand their medicine, this communication is not linear either (and i write about it on my substack :) So i get to practice a lot.
So yes, as far as proof goes, there is none. its not a tangible place or does it produce tangible results. basically if its meaningful to you then its meaningful. personally I have travelled to other realms for people around health issues in body mind and spirit and they have had the desired result. they have felt better, things have improved. We believe that it was because of what we did. but there is no proof. and as soon as there is, you're not doing that work. (like so quantum mannnn) so for sure, it absolutely could all be made up. again if it's not meaningful its not.
(you can see how it's going to be hard to profit from any of this unless you're an absolute showman and a lier. I do personally know one medicine man who got told by a plant who was going to win the super bowl that year and one who got told that trump would be president and I suppose they could of bet on it...and I think the super bowl guy was part of a pool so yeah but really. this stuff is not reliable)
and for sure you could spend a lot of words showing how this is all subconscious pattern blah blah, absolutely. However for those of us who work in this line of work our framework and our lineage is that it's part of our healing work.
Now of course, a practice that can't be proved is ripe for gaming. kind of like self declarative gender. like call in the crows its feeding time! so yeah. so many arseholes and charlatans preying on peoples fear. very much like big pharma and bad supplements. the last big wave of for profit arseholes we had was the ayahuasca crew and its not good coz that stuff can fuck people up....
i mean its healing work, that culturally was left in the hands of the healers and so when it gets gamed it is harmful. I'm sure the DoD were also pretty fucked up and one of the first red flags for me is someone needing a lot of money to demonstrate or heal with their "powers". Or to be respected as having healing powers.
Healing work isn't a for profit thing. it is the art of bringing back into balance. not endless energy or health or growth...it doesn't fit into the capitalist framework and really doesn't dovetail into a big power play. And it's not a super power. it's a calling. i mean anyone can build a house, just some people are more gifted. Honestly the best response to magic is so what? we walk with magic everyday. just by remaining stuck to the ground.
Also there needs to be a cultural agreement around folks who work in these realms. you cant really just say this is what I'm good at and expect to be trusted. it needs to be also recognized by your community. (and no i don't mean followers - another red flag), but your community. just like a man cant just say i'm a women and expect to be welcomed in the little girls toilets. the community has to agree that this is okay within the communal context. (and thankfully, no its not okay. and no I don't know any gender fluid person who wants to do that unless they have some really fucked up and dubious issues and shouldn't be trusted) So yes. there are failures. as in people be people. which is why we have community. And if they have a youtube channel, they are probably gaming the system. they might have the skills but to what end are they using them?
So i know some good healers, and remote travelers who are recognized within there communities and make a decent living off their skills and talents. but no one gets rich. This shit isn't tangible or logical. its only felt and anecdotal. and again its only meaningful if its meaningful. And none of them ever want to work for the DoD and most of them are very much on the down low. Have some of them been played? (maybe) but again. you cant prove whats not there lol.
And i'm sorry that you were part of the industrial war complex. A bigger bunch of nice guys being absolutely evil I cant imagine.
You say that Remote Viewing is not tangible, but that's the opposite of what the SRI said when they began their research. Their goal was tangible results, and they put Remote Viewing at the very top of the list, with very tangible claims (that could not be reproduced).
Uri Geller locating oil fields is beyond tangible.
But there may be two versions of the idea, then, getting blurred by different sets of claims. If that is the case, I suggest not blurring your version with the name they chose for their version.
And if it's not tangible, then it's not of significance.
But to distinguish between the blurred boundaries...the claim made by the Remote Viewer in this article is quite tangible. Clearly. That's why it's dramatic.
And conveniently, it's about the rubbery clots---not something where the audience can experience the science, or can be evaluated by data or logic in isolation. Hmmmm.
I believe there are quite a few versions of the idea, and for sure I responded to your sub to present mine, and also represent healers, by talking about a version that is about healing rather than using journeying skills for? attention? profit? power?...
I find claims made in the you tube video rubbish and dramatic and a waste of time. But I don't dismiss the art, or the work thats done in other realms. being a practitioner and all.....and i like to remind people of the mystery of life. So yeah apologies if i spring-boarded off this conversation somewhat.
Why is it that one of the tests for success in being a prophet, a viewer, a psychic, a whatnot is whether or not they made a lot of money? When you look around the world as it is now, does it appear that having or securing a lot of money is consistent with holiness, consideration, thoughtfulness, higher morality, truthfulness? Or does it appear differently?
If we learn that there is a significant "spiritual" component to one's ability to move beyond the body or disengage consciousness from a confined locality, and we also learn that money or desiring money is harmful to one's spiritual growth and consistency and flourishing, would we still make that test a standard?
I get the skepticism towards outlandish or slapdash claims. It is also accurate historically to notice there are various systems of remote viewing, which is a different activity from "out of body" experiences or practices. Uri Gellar, for example, emphasized coordinate remote viewing —the practice that became a part of GRILL FLAME, under an operating theory regarding the role consciousness plays in undermining what the supraconscious mind accesses when viewing. Other people practice different techniques; for example, Ed Dames, if I'm recalling correctly here, uses a more intuitive/interpretive model, with different outcomes.
For me, I'm more familiar with the Gateway techniques and practices advanced by the Monroe Institute, which don't focus so much on remote viewing as developing one's consciousness to be less inhibited, less constrained, and so more free to go beyond the physical body. Do you recall the story told about Jesus where the disciples around him were concerned about paying taxes? The story goes that Jesus instructs them to go fishing, and soon enough catch a fish with the exact amount needed to pay the tax. When you combine this with the "Render unto . . ." story, I take it the point is that focusing on material wealth and gain confines you to material concerns. When you give yourself over to a "higher power" that's orchestrating "higher events" out from the seemingly random and seemingly conspiratorial and seemingly mundane occurrences happening all around you, you find you are given a life that balances out. The more I have learned about the spiritual world, the less I have wanted a life of material wealth. Of course, I'm a poor and broke person, so maybe this is just delusion to assuage a regretful ego, when if I had applied myself and gotten my papers in order, I'd be making nice cheddar stacks and live as a village godfather like my grandfather had. Or, on the other hand, I'm working through the karma such a family history built up and I'm learning to treasure more wisely.
Either way, I agree there are many forms of psychological warfare occurring, and in this age of Endless Total War, what better weapon is there than to inculcate self-doubt in people in order to deny them the most effective and powerful force-multiplier they have: their spiritual self? You cannot use the car parked in your driveway if you don't even believe in cars; you cannot leave an unlocked room if you are thoroughly convinced to never even try the knob —why look silly? Won't you be embarrassed when it doesn't work? Only fools and clowns believe in The Outside World! You don't want to be a clown, do you? You don't want to get scammed, right?
I'm not saying any of this to say that Riordan is right-on or legitimate.
"Why is it that one of the tests for success in being a prophet, a viewer, a psychic, a whatnot is whether or not they made a lot of money?"
Read my just-written pinned comment.
Either something cannot be tested, in which case...if you can convince an observer, then they can also be convinced of nonsense. Such a person will eventually drink somebody's kool-aid. So, encouraging people to believe without tangible validation is entirely irresponsible---except insofar as it comes with a childhood lesson on the limitations of trust.
Or, this is something tangible, so why not use it to predict where investment capital is best deployed (where it will help more people realize the gains of technology by definition)?
"Can also" is not the same thing as "will be." You're making a modal argument to assert an ethical claim that's totalizing: "entirely" irresponsible. So, on the basis of what might happen, you're free to assert what is universally the case for all people, all the time, everywhere? How does that actually work?
What is a tangible test for Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems? If someone finds it convincing that no logical system inclusive of arithmetic is capable of representing all truths concerning itself within itself but cannot build a machine to test this with graspable objects, does it actually follow such a person will have nonsensical views? But if someone can build such a machine, does it actually follow such a person will never have nonsensical views?
I did offer a "why not" reason not to do something. I also offered (contextually) a broader framework to understand that why-not reason. Consider my why-not reason in the same logical form but different context: "If your powers of persuasion are so effective, why not use them to seduce any person and have all the sex you want? Why not use them where social capital is best deployed and realize the gains of evolutionary selection, having as many children as possible and securing your genetic legacy?"
It's not value-neutral to assume a "best deployment" of "investment capital;" likewise the case for "helping" people "realize the gains of technology." Notice all of the presuppositions lurking behind these terms, presuppositions others not only do not share, but might also see as seductively harmful given they are also aligned with others' interests and values, people who don't have a problem with, for example, convincing a large number of people to self-inject themselves with poison or behave in self-destructive ways conducive to becoming further dependent on state or technocratic rule. There are many reasons why you shouldn't immediately use the powers you have available to you to make yourself richer. You've read Lord of the Rings, right? The Ring is very much the Ring of Gyges in Plato's Republic, with the same ethical question attached to its use: if you *could* have the capacity to do whatever you wanted with no one to see you, no one to judge you, why not use that ability to do all the things you ever *really* wanted to do?
The research Targ and Puthoff performed and Adey's critical response to it, when the CIA leaked it in a controlled way, had enough people convinced that remote viewing was untrustworthy and ineffective —and thus closed off many minds to the other findings they did demonstrate: there is ample evidence for human involvement in something much larger than traditional "five sensory inputs" models, something akin to an active participation in fields that permitted non-local interaction. It was in the CIA's interest to maintain the narrative that psi is nonsense, kool-aid, fringe, because it not only worked to embarrass the DIA, but also discouraged people from further examining what was actually happening.
So, consider a different side of your own asserted maxim: encouraging people to disbelieve without further exploration is entirely irresponsible —as you have already made posts on this theme before, where controlled opposition, well-poisoning, and straw man takedowns are enough to convince people that there's nothing to see here, no need to look any further, nothing worthwhile to find. Move along, it's all tiresome and boring, anyway.
At any rate, it's not unhealthy to approach the world with an open mind and a curious spirit, holding onto and letting go of various frameworks, and occasionally finding one's self believing in "nonsense." From a different perspective, you yourself believe in nonsense that you find personally convincing, satisfying, and sense-making, a viewpoint you capture in the metaphor of a rounding of the earth. But from that other perspective, what you do here is convince people to deviate from the majority, from the sensible, from the sound, because you are encouraging them to believe in misinformation, disinformation, and fraud —from which you profit by soliciting subscriptions and securing funding for other projects you promote. It's an open mind that looks past that other perspective and recognizes truth is not always conveniently sensible.
What does Mathew believe at this point? Is everything fake? Just a normal coronavirus and an inert vaccine that’s only dangerous when injected into a blood vessel?
If I started writing what all I think, it would surely change halfway through.
I do not intend to write with any expectation that I have a map of the truth, but to share the exploration along with lessons of epistemology.
I'm writing a book on history of Tarot cards which by chance takes in a lot of information about divination and the occult. It's amazing that there have been divinatory meanings attached to the cards since the late 18th century and yet no respectable scholar has waded into the occult swampy waters to the source. So, I have thought about such things as psychic powers. I think these powers exist but they cannot be reliably measured. Ironically, the Tarot cards came out of the Renaissance along with the project to measure every inch of the world, and yet the humanists of the 15th century knew that some things cannot be measured. Why is that? Is it because they don't exist--that if something can't be measured it doesn't exist? Or maybe measuring these intangibles requires a level of squishy pythagorean mathematics that is non-linear and unacceptable to the academy. Most definitely, though, there is a lot of trickery there but also genuine mystery.
Hi Matthew, had to pause all payments. Money just doesn't interest me, so I don't have much. I bought a book on crypto currency and I can't understand it, feels like reading blurry words that make me sleepy. I have dissociative disorder or ADHD.
I really would like to talk about remote viewing more and hear what you learned as a child, your abilities and so forth. In a past life I was a nazi, worked as a remote viewer then used as a breeder in experiments. They killed or experimented on the ones who didn't show potential to be chosen ones. There are beserkers, they're basically channels, and they know the mutation for it. Hitler wanted blonde blue eyed mutations because he thought good aliens or angels manifested as blue eyed and blond. It was because of his stepmom/aunt that he believed this. He was half Jewish btw. Thought he could save the world through eugenics. I remember things about him and nazi occultism through dreams mostly.
Anyways, I escaped with my son during childbirth. He had black hair. I was helping to free some of the children like a double spy. The psychic spies could communicate through twin telepathy, but not through technology. You have to be really close to a person to have twin telepathy. This was back in the 1940s so I'm sure they've come far through technological enhancements of telepathy. I've met some psychics who could imagine things then make them happen. Definitely a spiritual component to it. Not everyone has these capabilities. The ones who do have potential often don't develop it.
As for the flamboyent fashion of psychics, I think that we feel like mascots in a way. We don't fit in but merge consciousness with others, so we are like antennas but trying hard to maintain a unique identity. The ego also gets in the way of processing truth, so by separating ourselves from an ego that reacts, it's better to just be treated like a mascot than be taken seriously. Detachment = sanity. As soon as you start caring what they think or what could happen you lose all sense of going with the flow and fall into dangerous territories of self annihilation or worse, they become afraid of you. Like killing the messenger, people hate seers who see things they want to hide.
After a childhood of being around people studying paranormal phenomena, I saw nothing particularly exciting that was real, a lot of impossible to evaluate claims, people who changed their stories about unbelievable events, a lot of people committed to lies as a lifelong endeavor, a lot of violent abuse, escapism into drugs and other addictions, heartbreaking trauma, and what appears to be in retrospect to be a network of control surrounding it all.
I understand and respect your position. Like combatting ghosts its best to just ignore it.
sidis method > transhumanism
Did you watch the James Randi biopic in which he admitted his life was a fraud; that he was secretly gay for decades, but let his lover die alone in order to maintain his secrecy?
Not a big fan of remote viewing, but having taken part in Dean Radin's Double Slit research at the Institute of Noetic Sciences, and surprised him by both blocking photons and making them conform into a tighter pattern, using different techniques, all within a Faraday Cage etc etc.
https://noetic.org/research/double-slit-experiment/
Be sure if you see the article in Frontiers claiming the data is misinterpreted, that you dig for Radin's response that his critic is not competent in statistical analysis, a problem, dear Mathew, you know ALL TOO WELL! :-)
Be careful with respect to having the wool pulled over your eyes when participating in such experiments.
I haven't watched that Randi biopic, but I don't depend on his story in any way. There are those who even think that he played a secret role in bringing more attention to fake psychics by standing in to play a role. It's plausible.
Years ago I ran a blog on Livejournal in which I would debunk some research---often psychology, and once in a while paranormal. A Cornell researcher named Daryl Bem published some experiments showing statistically significant likelihood of paranormal activity among subjects. Yawn. You can probably still find this somewhere---I and others ripped it apart, and fewer experiments like that have even been claimed since. That was a little difficult because I'd known Daryl's son, Jeremy---we both trained for the U.S. math olympiad team together for two years in high school. But that baffled me since I know quite well that his son...certainly would have recognized the statistical absurdities in the methodologies.
At some point, I deleted my blog after being threatened (really, me and my gf/wife...and that's what bothered me---our address was identified, which was creepy). This was before I understood how many thousands of threats are made per one carried out. I tried to undelete it a few hours later and somebody squatted on the name and is still there to this day (thehat).
But we don't know what his haberdashery bill is, so.